Umm, shouldn't my BB be dead?

[Aqualoon]

I was without power for 4 days, finally got it back yesterday. Throughout those four days my tank temp went at/below 66F (my thermostat only goes down to 66F) however I was doing waterchanges in hopes of keeping my stock alive.

Anyways, I just did a water change yesterday evening, and I am reading 0 ammonia, 0 nitrate and less then 5ppm of nitrates. My tank on a weekly bases produces a little above 5ppm (juvies/growing out). I know my test kit is acurate as it does show ammonia coming from the tap (false reading from the chloramine).

But I would have thought all my BB would have been killed off at that temperature? All my stock except for 3 dithers survived the outage so I am rather happy.

 

[BODYDUB]

Because your BB never was out of the water to have the chance to dry out.......

 

[Spiritofthesoul]

BB can survive over a huge range of temp

 

[pk705]

Nitrifying bacteria have very slow metabolism (for bacteria anyway) and it is because of this that they divide slowly (ever 12-20 hours under good conditions) and cycling takes a long time. Similarly, they require a long time to die off from starvation. They also have a large tolerance for water temperatures. Seeing that they didn't die because of drying out, it is perfectly normal that they survived.